Need to know: The intel on incels

Tumble down the rabbit hole of the internet, and you can expect to find a labyrinth of gazillions of terabytes of information, videos, photos, and text files. Nestled within this spiderweb is a myriad of subcultures, where like-minded individuals can communicate and collaborate and, in some cases, conspire. There’s a chatroom for dog lovers, for expectant mothers, for football fans, video gamers, for feminists, for misogynists, for the sexually active, and also, for the sexually deprived. 

The latest subculture that has caught the media’s attention is known as “incel” culture, which consists of people, usually young men, who are “involuntarily celibate” and criticise women for depriving them of sex. After the Plymouth gunman, Jake Davison, shot five people dead last week, people have been questioning how much this “incel” internet subculture radicalised him especially after he told a US teenager on a subreddit forum that he was “bitter and jealous” and that women “treat men with zero respect or even view them as human beings.” 

However, Davison’s adherence to the woman-hating ideology remains inconclusive as he never confirmed he was “incel” but just described them as “people similar to me.” Still, the ambiguous link has led organisations and scholars to believe his act was symptomatic of a misogynistic worldview proliferating online. 

A spokesperson for the UK’s leading antifascism campaign group, HOPE not hate, says: “While it is too soon to say what motivated this man to commit murder, we do know that the incel ideology can be dangerous and radicalising. It is built on misogyny, and a twisted, desperate worldview [….] Whatever happened in Plymouth, the hatred of men – and the communities of men who engage in a celebration of that hatred online – must be taken seriously, in schools, by social media firms and by the government.” 

Dr Josh Roose, a Senior Research Fellow at Deakin University, is an expert on masculinities and extremism, and believes incel attacks need to be understood as part of a spectrum of anti-women movements currently operating online.

Roose says: “[Incels] have arguably gained traction in recent years due to the evolution of social media forums where lonely individuals who might otherwise never meet face to face can form online communities and share their views, feeding off one another. “

“At a broader societal level, there are trends towards men being less likely to be able to find marriage partners and to find employment in traditionally male sectors of the economy. A small minority of these men carry deep resentment and anger and find a place in these incel communities.” 

What is “incel” culture, and where did it originate?

“Incel” is a portmanteau of “involuntary” and “celibate.” The provenance of the phrase can be traced back to 1997, when ironically, a woman in her mid-twenties called Alana launched a website to find others who were sexually inactive. “Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project” had good intentions, a safe space for people like Alana, who wanted relationships but couldn’t get them. 

At the dawn of the millennium, this fledgling incel community split into two forums. One was called “IncelSupport”, and the other was called “LoveShy.” Whilst the former adhered to Alana’s inclusive vision – the forum was open to both men and women, and misogynistic posts were banned. 

The latter, LoveShy, lacked a strict moderation policy, and soon enough, its male users dominated the platform to release their frustrations, blaming them for a lack of sex. The views expressed on LoveShy soon spilt over into other chat rooms, on sites like 4chan, which had a section called ‘r9k’ where users exchanged incel-like ideas. 

Within these subculture chatrooms, men talk freely about their skewed perceptions of women, often discussing rape and sexual assault as a comeuppance for rejection. Feelings of intense desire are conflated with feelings of intense hatred, and as a result, these men spew hostile and violent views, and in some cases, these online attacks and led to several acts of offline violence. 

Has there been a history of incel-motivated attacks?

In May 2014, the movement first became violent when Elliot Rodger, a self-identified incel, killed six students and injured 14 others before killing himself at the University of California. Before the attack, Rodger had left behind a 137-page “manifesto” as well as a YouTube video that revealed the reason for the attack was because he could not secure a relationship with a woman, leading to a burning hatred for those in relationships. In his manifesto, he wrote: “All I had ever wanted was to love women, but their behaviour has only earned my hatred. I want to have sex with them, and make them feel good, but they would be disgusted at the prospect.” 

Since the attack, Rodger became somewhat of a hero type within the community, with several incels saying they wanted to “go ER” and that he served as the inspiration for other attacks. For example, on 23 April 2018, a white van mounted the pavement in Toronto and Alek Minassian, also a self-described incel, used the van to murder ten pedestrians.  On his arrest, Minassian, said he never had a girlfriend and was a virgin and that the attack was retribution for years of rejection. Minutes before the attack, he posted on Facebook: “The incel rebellion has begun! We will overthrow the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger.”

“There have been over 50 deaths in North America and Europe in the past decade linked to male supremacist terrorism across incel and Men’s right activists,” explains Dr Roose.

 “This does not include plots that were interrupted with potential targets, including a women’s day march and female sorority house in the US. These groups actively target girls and women online, particularly those deemed to hold feminist views.

“Abuse, harassment and threats of violence are commonplace. The problem is growing and can be expected to grow as broader societal contributors grow the base of these movements.”

Does the incel community have its own ideology? 

Since Elliot Rodger’s attack, incels have created their own ideology; one which is premised on a pseudoscientific sociology of sex and nihilism along with its own complex jargon. First, the incel journey begins with a metaphorical “red pill”, which is an awakening to the fact that feminism has given women too much power over men and male privilege does not exist. Then there is the “black pill”, which is the final revelation that unalterable biological traits almost entirely determine sexual success. 

As a result, incels see modern Western society shaped by a form of sexual hierarchy. At the top of this hierarchy are these attractive men who are called “Chads.” incels then refer to sexually active and attractive women as “Stacys”, and less attractive women are known as “Beckys.” People who are average looking and are not incels are called “Normies.” 

Is incel culture a microcosm of a wider desire to mobilise masculinity? 

“Very broadly speaking, we have seen the emergence of demagogic strong men globally such as Trump, Farage, Orban, Putin to Bolsanaro, Modi and Duterte,” says Dr Roose. “Central to their message is that the nation has become weak, and there is an urgent need to reassert traditional gender roles, placing men as head of the household.

“This is tapping into the underlying dissatisfaction by men with perceived declining economic and social status. The public statements of these leaders, at the opposite end of the power spectrum from incels, nonetheless feed into the notion of a “crisis of masculinity.” 

Should incel attacks be classified as acts of terrorism? 

A current debate underway is whether these incel-motivated attacks should be classified as terrorism or instead, as a gateway to it. According to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legalisation, the UK government is allegedly likely to consider treating these “incels” as terrorists, if there are more attacks like the Plymouth shootings. 

Yet, on the one hand, some fear that by including these acts under the umbrella of “terrorism”, the label will lose its grit, especially when the majority of incels are non-violent. However, others believe that the problem is that whilst the culture may not necessarily trigger violence, it could become a breeding ground for copycat attacks. 

Dr Roose  believes these attacks should be classified as acts of terrorism; “Canada is currently leading the way in treating incel beliefs as terrorist ideology.”

He adds that other nations are slowly recognising the danger posed, including the US, UK and Australia. Social media companies are increasingly taking the problem seriously, though they are acting more slowly than they could.